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Lands; some voice notes

(for the first half of the post, and some context go to ava’s blog here)

*** the next day ***

Eve 0:58

I think with the metaphor, with what you were saying about Palmyra and stuff, I think that’s very true. Umm yeah I think that both Eurohouse and Lands did that very well, but I think I do get on with that kind of stuff because if it’s done badly it’s just

So

Shit

But if it’s done well it’s some of the most powerful stuff you can do because it’s so subtle and I’m really interested in the idea that you can talk about something and you can really make a statement without talking directly about it. I think it’s a really really interesting way of being like artistically political in a very kind of obscure and also enjoyable way, but also quite painful.

Eve 0:59

I mean obviously I was actually sick but I also wasn’t bc it was just paranoia! and I was fully just being a hypochondriac. I was thinking when you said that, I think maybe it was partly the show in kind of a good way like it really made me feel quite kind of physically like i wanted to

*hurl*

In a very visceral way. And I think maybe I was so kind of clenched the whole way through and just

Because you sort of know. You know how it’s gonna end like you know the direction it’s going in. As soon as she says that first line of like ‘I can’t get off’ I thought I know exactly what this is and I can see this and I can see where this is going and I don’t like it but I know I’m going to have to sit through it and I think that’s sort of the point.

Ava 0:54

Yeah like (what was I gonna say ummm yeah) the way that they both reduce down um politics or just sort of feelings, the way emotion is reduced to like an action and aCH I don’t know it’s really hard to explain? You’d think it wouldn’t be but it is.

I don’t really know what kind of theatre that is.

And I feel like there should be more of it but as you say it’s really difficult to do. Um yeah I mean maybe we’re both quite simplistic people but I get a lot out of that kind of thing and I think that’s why FellSwoop are so popular (well popular in this really tiny group) because it’s such an accessible way of doing it

Ava 0:52

Yeah I feel like I didn’t really know that it was about that, not that it was all about it but that like so much of it was going to be about getting Sophie off of the trampoline and I think to do that over what like an hour and 20 minutes is like the most difficult thing to do – like to just draw out that conceit and to not make it feel like it’s just a rehearsal technique, because it kind of feels like bits of that show feel like they could be things that people use in rehearsal – like let’s try and get this person out of the room or get this person off this thing like how many different ways can you do it. But the skill in Lands is that it’s never made to feel extraneous – it’s always very rooted in like those characters

Eve 0:52

I think also – sorry I haven’t listened to the voice note you just sent – but yeah I think something that definitely interests, certainly interests us, but also generally “”young”” people, is this idea of casualised violence and the idea that we see these little snippets of brutal and sort of hyperbolic like violence, destruction, catastrophe and it’s all like contained in a tiny little, like a bomb (??) I don’t know how to describe it but I think that’s sort of how the show felt. It’s something that Eurohouse/Palmyra did which is have this very contained, small but extremely explosive violence.

Eve 0:57

Yeah I agree. I think I’ve sort of said everything I think about it but I know what you mean about the rehearsal thing – I think that’s very true and I think it’s so hard to tread the line between ‘I’ve seen this before I know this I know the intent and I know the direction’ and then to also make it surprising and interesting and kind of playful and feel quite spontaneously playful because I think some of the worst things (okay not the worst things that’s not true) but something that I find frustrating sometimes is a fake liveness or pointing to a liveness that isn’t actually there. I think I find that frustrating but I think maybe Lands did that sometimes but I think other times it did feel quite true. So I thought they trod(??) treaded??? They tread that line very well.

Ava 0:40

Yeah no I totally agree about the violence thing. Yeah completely – the way it’s sort of like hyper-intensive and very small and sort of – I don’t know maybe that’s almost a response to the way that a younger generation are perceived as overly sensitive and stuff, but these kind of companies I feel like they really pinpoint why certain things are so horrific and they really sort of isolate them and put them in a sort of under a microscope and they’re just kinda like look this is really really horrifically painful

Ava 0:53

Yeah I think I’m pretty much done too but yeah the sort of fake liveness thing – I’m kind of getting increasingly annoyed now. I feel like that whole trend of like “oh, the performance is falling apart!” it’s kind of annoying me now. I feel like so many people have done it and it’s kind of like – I feel like an interesting way for it to progress (like for that idea to progress) is for that “thing” like that supposed breakdown of the performance to be recognised in itself as being artificial, as being part of the stagecraft